10

Kel’s scowl told her he wasn’t thrilled with this turn of events, but Lyra was too hungry to care. Plus, Cora was nice, and watching her dab a drop of honey taken from a glass jar on the bee sting on her daughter’s arm made her miss her own mother in a way she hadn’t in years.

She was twenty-six years old, and for a second, all she wanted was to go back in time to when she was Nira’s age and her parents made sure her biggest worry was getting her homework done before bed.

Cora and Nira made her feel not alone in a way that Kel, with all his wary tension, didn’t. After Cora covered the dough with a cloth to let it rise, she used another cloth, folded over on itself, to take the pie off of the oven ledge and put it on the counter to cool. Nira, her fascination with the bee sting fading, sidled over to Lyra and stared at her as if she was the most fascinating thing in the world.

“Where’d you buy the oranges?” she asked after a few moments went by during which Lyra just stared back. “Do you have more? Can I have the other one that Uncle Kel took, or do you want it back?”

“Um…”

Thankfully, the door opened again and she was spared from answering — because the truth was, she did, want that orange, especially considering that it might be the last one she saw for a very long time. She loved oranges, damn it. But she would probably sound like a jerk if she told this kid she couldn’t have it, and she really needed these people to help her. A man she didn’t recognize came in this time. Cora glanced up and gave him a warm smile.

“How’d it go? How mad is Halod?”

“He was chuckling along with me by the time we got the beehive propped back up, but he’s probably going to charge us more the next time we buy honey from him. I just hope the bees don’t swarm. We’ll owe him if he loses the whole hive.”

“I’m sorry,” Nira said, looking genuinely regretful. “I didn’t mean to wreck it. We didn’t think anyone would notice if we just took a little, but then the bees started stinging us and we didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s fine, kiddo,” the man said, reaching down to ruffle her hair. “You’ve learned better now, right? After lunch, I want you to go apologize to Halod and offer to help him take care of the bees to make up for the money he’s going to lose from the honey that spilled. Does that sound fair?”

Nira nodded. Only then did he turn his attention to Lyra. A brief frown crossed his face, but his eyes reminded kind as he said, “And who is this? You found her, Kel?”

“Her name’s Lyra and she speaks Moldaran now,” Cora said. “She’s joining us for lunch. Lyra, this is Gidal, my husband.”

“It’s a pleasure, priestess. If you’ll stand, I’ll move the table away from the wall so we all have room to sit. Kel, go fetch another stool, will you?”

Lyra did her best to keep out of the way as the men quickly rearranged the table and chairs so they would all have room to sit down. Cora roped Nira into setting the table, and before long, they were all seated around it with the steaming meat pie and a bowl of apples taking center place. Cora set a ceramic pitcher down next to the food as she joined them.

“Mead?” Gidal asked reaching for the pitcher. “You’re spoiling us, Cora.”

“We have a guest,” she said. “Pour for her first. Then Nira can tell Halod the new priestess likes his mead, which should help soften him even further.”

Lyra had never even had mead before. All she knew was it was made out of honey. When Gidal poured some into her mug and she tasted it, she was pleasantly surprised. It was lightly carbonated and a little sour, with notes of sweetness that clung to her tongue afterward.

“This is amazing,” she said.

“It’s a cyser, Halod makes big batches every year,” Cora explained. “Everyone who helps him gather apples gets some.”

“I helped this year, but I only got a sip,” Nira complained.

“That’s more than I got at your age,” Gidal grumbled good naturedly.

“We have more important things to talk about than mead,” Kel cut in. “Priestess, what were you doing before you were placed in Kyokami? Leave no detail unspoken. There must be a reason behind your presence.”

“Just call me Lyra, please,” Lyra said. “And I can tell you what I was doing yesterday, but I really don’t think it will help.”

Stolen story; please report.

It was harder than she expected, telling him about what had been an average day in her life when she didn’t have words for half the things she was trying to describe. The metal carriages that were powered by burning oil and carried people down the roads, the glass that danced with colors and words in almost every shop and home, the devices like the one she had left in the temple that people used to talk to each other and look up information in a great library that anyone could access… she remembered all of those things, she just didn’t have the words for them.

As she spoke, Cora cut into the pie and served them all slices. As she had guessed, it was some sort of meat pie, with chunks of what looked like beef or venison and root vegetables in a dark gravy. The crust was golden-yellow and flaky. It was hard to finish her story before eating.

And in the end, all of her struggle to explain what her day had been like was for nothing, because she really had just been grocery shopping. There hadn’t been anything notable. It was a day like any other, until she ended up here.

“Your home sounds awesome,” Nira said. “What’s it called? How many people live there?”

“I can’t remember what it’s called,” Lyra explained. “And a lot of people. Hundreds of thousands.”

Awe filled the girl’s face, and Lyra was sure she was trying to imagine what such a large city was like. Had she ever even left Kyokami? She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to only know the same fifty or so people for her own life.

“Why can’t you remember what it’s called?” Nira asked.

“I asked the, um—” It still felt weird talking about all of this as if it was normal. For them, maybe it was. For her, it was overwhelming. “I asked Towr to teach me this language, and promised she could learn mine in exchange. I didn’t realize that meant she would take my knowledge of my own language and make me forget it.”

Nira frowned. “That’s not very nice of her. How are you supposed to talk to your friends when you go home?”

“The gods aren’t nice,” Kel said. “You need to remember that, Nira. What happened to Lyra is a good example of why you should never trust them.”

“But Towr usually is nice. You’re the one who’s mean, Uncle Kel. You don’t like anyone.”

“Enough,” Cora said. “Nira, Don’t argue. This is about Lyra, not you.”

“Could you perhaps describe more of your country to us, priestess? Grey and rainy, it sounds like Molda to me, but if you were from there, you’d already speak Moldaran.”

Lyra glanced toward Kel, not sure how much she should tell them, but he made no move to stop her. “I’m not… from this world.” She remembered how she had explained it to Kel. “I’m from a world that circles a different sun. It was very different from this. We didn’t have gods there.”

For the first time, even Cora looked wrongfooted. “You didn’t have — I don’t understand. How is that possible?”

“I believe her,” Kel said, though he sounded more grim than supportive. “You saw her yesterday. And last night she was jumpy as a feral cat. She knew little to nothing about Towr, or gods in general. It is so absurd that I may have thought she was lying, if not for how the temple welcomed her. Towr gave her Lora’s tunic.”

Lyra looked down at the deep green tunic. Despite everything, she was grateful the grey woman — Towr, she knew her name now — had given it to her. It really did seem to make a difference in how people saw her. She mentally added asking about whoever the tunic belonged to to her list of questions, but it would have to wait.

“You never saw a god before?” Nira asked. “How did you know you were a priestess?”

“I didn’t until I got here,” Lyra said. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about being given that title, but it seemed like it was going to stick… and it came with benefits she probably didn’t want to lose. “I had no idea what was going on. What happened to me… that sort of thing doesn’t happen in my world. I was terrified. I couldn’t understand anyone, then I saw some guy walking toward me with a sword—” She nodded at Kel. “And I panicked and ran away. Towr found me. She could understand me, and I could understand her. I… I’m upset that she took my native language from me, but she did help me. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t found me.”

“Is it possible she had something to do with your appearance?” Cora asked, her brow furrowing. “I know her lιən isn’t very wide, but with Lora gone—”

“Towr is far too weak to have done something like this,” Kel interrupted brusquely. “She may have some knowledge of what happened, but she’s not responsible.”

“Um, she said something about a Great God,” Lyra said. “She said that I ‘have the feel of the Great God upon me’ or something like that. She also said she didn’t know why I was here, and she can’t help me go back.”

Silence fell around the table after that. She finally took a bite of the pie and discovered that it tasted just as good as it smelled. It was hard not to shovel it into her mouth, but she didn’t want to make whatever impression these people had of her even worse.

“If the Great God brought you here, then it is far, far beyond my realm of expertise,” Kel said after a moment. “I offered you my help, but I would not even know where to begin. The Temple of the Great God in Heliotheopolis is the most likely place for you to find your answers.”

Gidal frowned, and Nira was poking and prodding at her food rather than look at any of them. Cora seemed to be doing a mental calculation in her head. A moment later, she gave Lyra a hopeful smile.

“It would take you a couple of weeks to get there, but even at a slow pace, you would arrive in time for God’s Day. If the temple doesn’t have your answers, then you may be able to pray to the Great God himself for them. If you do so on God’s Day, he may answer, especially if he has already interceded in your life directly. I’ve heard that sort of thing is more common in the big cities, where more people are gathered to worship him. I don’t think he’s ever even looked at Kyokami.”

Lyra wasn’t sure how she felt about praying to another god, especially one that was clearly far more powerful than Towr was, but she suspected that if she wanted to get home, it would be inevitable. There was just one problem.

“I have no idea where this city is, let alone how I’d get there.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Cora gave her a bright smile. “Kel will escort you, of course.”